Twitter truth: Brits are stoked on the Olympics

For as long as that guy from the movie Memento can remember, London has been known as a passionate patch of patriotism, a land of bubbly city dwellers skipping, whistling and waxing on about love of country and fiercely extolling the virtues of life in the United Kingdom.

Yet, with the Olympics taking center stage, that Brit self-loathing seems to be giving way to a tidal wave of positivity.

Don’t believe me? Look to the Eye. The London Eye.

For a half hour each night during the Games, the iconic Ferris-wheel-on-steroids serves as a mood ring for the nation. Purple is negative, green is neutral and yellow is positive.

Guess what? It’s been a steady hue of yellow ever since the faux Queen jumped out of the chopper last week, according to a sentiment algorithm that parses thousands of messages an hour relating to #London2012 and other relevant Twitter hashtags.

British utility EDF Energy commissioned a team of MIT graduates to interpret these tweets before broadcasting the results on the London Eye. During the opening ceremony, almost 47,000 tweets a minute relating to the Olympics streamed across the Twittersphere. An overwhelming number were positive. Some 79% at the peak, in fact.

Other than the well-received kickoff to the festivities, success from Team GB cyclist Lizzie Armitstead and freestyle swimmer Rebecca Adlington also served to goose the upbeat readings. No amount of empty seats spoiled the party. Tonight, the Eye will likely light up somewhere around 75% of the wheel in yellow.

The EDF team isn’t the only one delving into sentiment. DCM Capital and its founder Paul Hawtlin are also busy interpreting the virtual noise buzzing on Twitter. Hawtlin, a contributor on MarketWatch’s Trading Deck, usually does this to identify good and bad investments. This week, however, he turned his lens to the Games.

“Sentiment on London in general has improved considerably over the last two weeks during the build up to the Olympics,” he said, pointing out that in the six months prior to the Games, the positivity rating on a scale from 1 to 100 averaged out at 53.5 points. Now, much like the EDF data, that number has risen to 73.7.

Reuters

Some other notable findings from DCM Capital: Sprinter Usain Bolt, one of the most recognizable and highest paid athletes in town, has seen his reading drop into negative territory at 48.5 points.

Perhaps fans didn’t take too kindly to his telling the BBC that he wasn’t 100% fit for the games. Hawtlin says it could be the strong challenge from fellow Jamaican Yohan Blake.

Then there’s the Queen, who now has another jewel to add to her crown — she seems to be a Twitter darling, with her sentiment surge to 81.8 points in the past three days. Hawtlin chalks it up to her on-screen performance with James Bond during the opening ceremony. Not a bad year for Her Majesty.

If you want to see some of these kinds of tweets in action, check out Emoto2012, a website that “captures and visualises the excitement” around the Olympics. It also shows the trending topics and an easy-to-navigate flow of messages. At the time of this post, British diver Tom Daley, was the most discussed.

Apparently @PenguinParkour is sad that he’s missing Daley’s attempt to grab Team GB’s first gold. “The country will be proud of you no matter,” the tweet read.

Clearly, whether the Brits will admit it publicly over a pint or not, the country also appears to be proud of its Olympic efforts so far.

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